Experiences of Japanese nurse scholars: insights for U.S. faculty

The purpose of this paper is to describe the international educational experiences of Japanese nurse scholars to develop more understanding within academic settings in the United States (U.S.). Based on Heideggerian phenomenology, interpretive methods were used to analyze 42 interviews. Participants of this study were 22 Japanese nurse scholars who had received or were in the process of receiving master or doctoral degrees from schools of nursing in the U.S., and three Japanese nurse consultants. To build trust and aid with self-disclosure, participants were interviewed up to three times. The analytic process used overlapping strategies, including early identification of principal themes, interpretive writing based on exemplars, and paradigm cases illustrative of major themes. Themes discussed in this paper include: changes in the sense of self; cultural differences in self-disclosure; the importance of the advisor; mental health issues; strategies for support; differences between practices in the U.S. and Japan; and experiences of returning to Japan.